


Hanakotoba

by aprildaze



Category: Naruto
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-01
Updated: 2018-09-01
Packaged: 2019-07-05 13:31:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15864606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aprildaze/pseuds/aprildaze
Summary: Suddenly, Anko would give anything to have Rin not let go.





	Hanakotoba

“DON’T LOOK AT THEM. THEY DON’T WANT YOU.”

Anko presses her face against her mother’s neck. It smells of cotton and sesame and the last burning embers of a fire — it smells domestic. It smells of home.

There are scars and calluses woven into the palm that presses against Anko’s back, softly, between her trembling shoulders. One day this embrace will smell again of whetstone and tanto blade.

One day, this embrace will turn cold.

Kuroyuri can feel her daughter trembling. “Don’t look,” she warns again. But Anko’s eyes always wander, hungry, for what they should not know. With all the pride of the grieving god Izanagi, she peaks beyond her mother’s neck, meeting the hateful, white gaze of her would-be grandmother.

BASTARD. HALF-BREED. MISTAKE,  
scream the white eyes.

Izanami — in full regalia, crowned by rot.

 

Sensei tucks the stem of the pink peony behind Anko’s ears. “In the language of flowers, _botan_ means bravery,” she teases, her voice gentle and half-lost with the wind. It is nothing like the sound Orochimaru will bring: whispering, grating but soft, a sound that is clung to and never lost. He’s looming near in Anko’s future, but for now there is Spring, a fresh meadow of gorgeous flowers collected quickly by young genins-to-be.

“Flowers are boring,” Anko complains, continuing to tear apart one of the meadow’s few delicate clumps of daisies.

“On missions, you have to be able to blend in with civilians,” Sensei explains, smile glowing but sharp. “They have to look at you and see a normal woman.”

Anko tosses a daisy stem to the ground. Her strange gray-brown eyes are full of fury, like the last scattered ashes of her mother’s funeral. “But we’re not normal,” she bites, a promise and a curse both, the first peaked fangs of a scaled monster.

 

Rin’s palms are soft with green chakra, her touch cold and steady. Her back is arched over Anko’s wound, brows furrowed in concentration, breath coming out in even, warm puffs. Anko holds her hand absolutely still, hardly knowing what she’s afraid of. Blood? Marrow? A gleaming shard of bone? Even this young, the insides of a body are hardly a mystery to the young shinobi.

“It cut pretty deep,” Rin tuts, tongue poking at the edge of her mouth. Anko’s eyes dart to the pink lips, then away. “Is your speciality kunai?”

“No,” Anko snorts. “My speciality is summoning.”

Her voice comes out as harsh as ever, but something soft turns in her stomach, fluttering and uncomfortable. Rin grins.

“Ah! Of course. Your sensei is one of the famous Sannin, after all,” she beams. Under the weight of her pride, Anko can’t help but feel a little proud too.

“Yeah,” she says, answering smile sharp but just as warm. “He is.”

The green glow of Rin’s chakra dims, along with the pain in Anko’s hand. She turns Anko’s palm up, gently turning the wrist and adjoining bones. They both have pale, calloused limbs. Almost ugly with all their scarring.

Suddenly, Anko would give anything to have Rin not let go.

The older kunoichi pulls back, smile glowing. The winter air stirs a patch of camellia, soft yellow in the evening sun.

“All set,” Rin promises. “You’re whole.”

 

The lab smells of lilies and formaldehyde. Anko crouches beside her favorite snake, a pure white _aodaishō_ with pale, pupiless eyes, just like her own. She watches as the reptile’s pink tongue flickers out to taste the air, quick as a kiss.

“Anko-kun,” Orochimaru smiles. “I didn’t know you were still here.”

“Sorry, Sensei!” Anko turns quickly, hastily bowing. “I was just—”

“Curious?” he finishes, laughing softly. His voice reminds Anko of her mother: gentle and doting, always hiding something sharper.

She ducks her head.

“Yes, Sensei.”

Orochimaru leans forward, head nearly even with her own. He is handsome, a perfect mix of masculine and feminine... unlike Anko, who has always been called too mannish to be beautiful. 

She wants, desperately, to be just like him: talented, respected, feared.

His mouth pulls up, a flattering imitation of a smile.

“Curiosity makes for a poor shinobi,” Orochimaru warns in a whisper, as if this is a secret held between the two of them and no one else in their village. “But perhaps, Anko-kun, you desire to be something more than a tool for Konoha?”

 

Rin returns from Kiri hollow eyed, smile dim, face drowned.

Anko knows: Rin turned, too.

Saw the beauty of the underworld: let the Spring flowers reflect their rot, somewhere deep inside her.

“YOU DON’T HAVE TO BE LIKE THEM,” Anko promises, holding her hands tight around the older kunoichi’s palms.

“Like who?” Rin asks, voice quiet and raw.

“Kiri,” Anko says. “Konoha.”

Rin shudders. A long moment passes on the forest’s edge before she moves again, this time to meet Anko’s gaze: even under moonlight, Rin’s eyes are a deep, gorgeous brown. So dark, you could be lost inside them.

“I should have died,” she confesses.

Anko feels something soft turn in her stomach, fluttering and uncomfortable.

“Our lives don’t have to be marked by death,” she swears. “They can be marked by survival.”

 

This island is a dream, fevered, wretched, only half-remembered:

He looms as a bright shadow in the room/prison/dirt, skin white, eyes slitted and amber-pale. Anko’s small hand wraps around the snake’s tail, the scales cold and smooth beneath her desperate fingertips.

If there is blood, it is only her own.

He laughs, skin rustling as he twists to meet her gaze, grasping her face with the tip of his arched fangs. _You are lacking..._ He promises, and the promise echoes deep inside her, heavy and poisoned.

For years, she will believe Orochimaru didn’t want her.

In truth: Izanagi was only ever a visitor to the underworld.

Proud and powerful, it is Anko who abandons _him._

 

“Anko!”

A pale hand presses beside her arm, not upon it. Anko is grateful and furious all at once: her skin still feels raw, her insides hollowed out and burning.

Yet it doesn’t stop her, from desiring what she can’t have.

“Rin,” Anko smiles weakly, trying to sit taller against the hospital bed. It feels good, almost human, to see a face that is not ANBU or T&I. “They’re allowing visitors?”

Rin’s face turns bright pink beneath her dark tattoos. Anko looks past her, realizes Kurenai is not with her, and surely, her friends would come together if they could come at all.

“Not quite,” Rin admits.

Morning sunlight filters in through drawn curtains. Rin is dressed in a long white coat instead of her off-duty outfit. The only color in the room is a bouquet of fresh sunflowers, crowded in a tall blue vase. Anko blinks. She can’t remember when the flowers arrived, when it was that she last saw anything alive that was not tainted by Orochimaru.

“I could be a traitor, you know,” Anko warns, softly. “I could be dangerous.”

Rin frowns, eyes flashing bright, almost red in the strange early-morning light.

“So could I,” she answers, fiercely. 

The hand that presses against her arm is soft and cool: a promise as beautiful as the young woman standing beside her.

 

Strong arms wrap around her waist, not bothering to be quiet despite the lateness of the hour. For the most part, the apartment absorbs the sound, echoing quietly in the evening dark. Anko feels something turn in her stomach, fluttering and comfortable.

“You’re late,” she complains, keeping her eyes closed, face pressed against her pillow. Soft lips ghost against her back and neck, calloused fingertips softly moving her messy hair for better access to flesh.

“I brought you flowers,” a voice promises, breath soft against her ear.

Anko sighs, then turns, curling into her girlfriend’s chest. 

“I hate flowers.”

“You always say that,” Rin laughs, re-settling her arms around Anko’s warm body. She nuzzles her nose against the arch of Anko’s collarbone. “They’re roses,” she says. “Red ones.”

“Red,” Anko repeats, gently cracking open her eyes despite the heaviness of sleep. “What does that mean again?”

Rin smiles, kisses her softly.

“I’ll tell you in the morning.”

**Author's Note:**

> aprldaze on twitter & pillowfort


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